


Supermarket Flowers

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, BAMF Rhodey, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Humor, In the Beginning, Parent Tony Stark, Parent-Child Relationship, Pregnancy, Protective Rhodey, Superfamily, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony learning how to do the parent thing honestly, and Rhodey being awesome, but a different superfamily than the usual, thats all this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 15:16:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11626260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Everyone thought Tony was going to be the world’s worst mother, which was probably true but she liked to pretend it wasn’t. She’s never really wanted kids- too afraid she’d end up like the old man, but for some stupid reason she recently decided that she wanted a kid and now she was too far along to back out.Rhodey still had faith in her ability to not be a shitty parent despite her consistent annoyance with being pregnant and all the ridiculous restrictions that came with it.





	Supermarket Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering if Miles is based off Miles Morales than yes he is. I love superfamily but instead of Tony/ Steve with smol Peter Parker it's Tony/ Rhodey and smol Miles Morales. Well, Stark technically, but I took inspo from Morales.
> 
> Mostly I wanted lady Tony doing motherhood differently because I always see the same narratives with motherhood and also I don't write enough Tony/ Rhodey or enough lady Tony.

Tony was used to pretty much everyone not knowing anything about her, and she knew plenty more about people not even bothering to try. But every once and awhile she ran into someone who took the time to see past her loud mouth, bad attitude, and self-destructive tendencies and Rhodey has always seen past her shit. He was always so calm in the face of whatever the hell was wrong with her this week and he could actually keep up with her intelligence to boot. People could rarely keep up with her in any way shape or form but Rhodey never fell behind, and he always saw through whatever front she put up. He was one of the first people she ever bothered to let her guard down with and he’s never let her down.

It helped that he just… _understood_ her in ways that most didn’t. To most people she was too loud, too intelligent, too blunt, too unwilling to follow stupid social rules, she was just too much. It was a common theme in her life, people being unable to keep up with her kind of crazy. Rhodey never had much trouble though; he always just knew what was going on.

She was thankful for it now because everyone but him thought she was going to be the world’s worst mother, which was probably true but she liked to pretend it wasn’t. She’s never really wanted kids- too afraid she’d end up like the old man, but for some stupid reason she recently decided that she wanted a kid and now she was too far along to back out. But Rhodey still had faith in her ability to not be a shitty parent despite her consistent annoyance with being pregnant and all the ridiculous restrictions that came with it. For the first time in her damn life she was on a damn _diet_. She’s been told she’s needed to be on one a million and one times but the media could eat shit while she ate her fifth slice of pizza because it was _good_ okay? But now she had this huge list of things she could and couldn’t eat, and these damn prenatal vitamins to take, and all this other crap she couldn’t do thanks to going through a process that was, quite honestly, horrifying.

People liked to talk about the miracle of life and all that crap but that was total bullshit, being pregnant was a god damn shitshow and anyone who claimed otherwise was a damn dirty liar. If this process wasn’t considered normal it would be the stuff or horror films. Actually, she notes, it _was_ but it was usually aliens laying eggs in human men but all that creepy kicking and expanding bodies and all that still happened. Except it was a terrifying process for them but for her it was some gift to bestowed upon her. This was no gift, the baby kicking creeped her out and she got kicked in the bladder a lot, which was annoying after drinking _anything_ and also the flush of hormones made her forget _everything_ and she was hungry all the time. Plus she was growing large enough to have her own gravitational force and she was _waddling_ now. She looked like a very fat duck and this was supposed to be a _miracle_? How about no.

Of course when she mentioned this to anyone other than Rhodey she was immediately a horrible person who didn’t deserve a child. She had no idea why being rightfully annoyed with pregnancy’s caveats would somehow translate to bad parenting but whatever. People hated things their family members did all the time and still loved them, she could hate that this little bastard kicked her bladder every five minutes and made her pee herself a little and still love the kid. To her those things were common sense but to the public? If she stated how she _really_ felt about being pregnant she’d be skinned alive. She was regularly insulted for the things she _did_ say and most of it was complaining about not liking the fact that she wasn’t fond of that five month period where she spent her morning kissing the porcelain throne. She didn’t spend that much time puking in her college years and she was basically an alcoholic. And damn could she use a shot or ten of whisky these days to cope but _no_ , pregnant people can’t drink and even if she wasn’t pregnant recovering alcoholics also shouldn’t drink.

“Why don’t you think I’ll be a horrible mother?” she asks Rhodey one night when they were watching TV. She’s lying on the ground wishing for death because she couldn’t find a comfortable position no matter where she was so she figured she’d just lie on the floor. Rhodey frowns at her and she sighs, “well everyone else think I’m going to be a crap parent, me included honestly so why don’t you?”

Rhodey shrugs, “because I know you.” She rolls her eyes at that because that wasn’t a real answer at all so Rhodey expands on his thoughts. “Look Tony, you’ve been getting shit for _years_ for the way you eat, you work yourself half to death in the lab on a regular basis, you have no regard for your health at _all_ , never have. But since finding out you were pregnant you eat on a more regular basis, you don’t eat anything that pregnant women are supposed to stay away from, you don’t even work in the lab anymore because of the fumes, and for the first time since before your childhood you have a normal sleep schedule. I know you don’t care about you, even if you should, which means that you’re doing all of these things because you want that baby to be healthy. _That’s_ why I think you’ll be a good mother. Because you already are.”

She can’t help but smile because Rhodey always seemed to know what to say to make her feel better. And the kind of had to admit he was right when he worded it like that.

*

Pepper starts laughing, “oh my god she did _what_?” she asks. Of course she expected some kind of experience from Tony while giving birth, it was _Tony_ , she did everything weird.

Rhodey shakes his head, “she wanted nothing to do with the baby because, and this is a quote: ‘I just spent twenty seven hours in labor with that thing and you expect me to _hold_ it? Get it away from me.’ I can’t say I’m all that surprised.”

Neither was Pepper though Rhodey had had to tell some nurse off for insulting Tony for her reaction. Pepper couldn’t blame her, after twenty seven hours of pain she wouldn’t want anything to do with the thing that caused it either but she’s never been fond of kids. Tony had never been fond either so why the hell she randomly chose to have a kid Pepper had no idea. To her and Rhodey it came out of nowhere but she knew that this wasn’t the kind of thing Tony would spring on herself. She was impulsive and often stupid despite her genius yes, but she’s always had a thing with kids. She never wanted them because of her background with her family and Rhodey was more understanding than the public was about it. Once she was even called selfish for not ‘providing’ Rhodey with a child.

Amazingly Rhodey had managed to finagle something with his military position just to come back and make a statement about that, namely that Tony didn’t have to ‘provide’ him with anything. And that she wasn’t some kind of baby machine, she was a _person_ and he married her because of that, not because he thought he’d get a kid out of her. Pepper figured if that was his reason he chose the wrong woman because Tony has been, at least until last year, highly adamant that she wanted nothing to do with kids. She liked them well enough and she was good with them but Pepper thought she was scared if she had kids she’d be like her father. They were already so similar; everyone liked to point it out.

“So,” Pepper says, “how long do you think it’ll take for her to bond with the poor little guy?” Rhodey had been taken with the child immediately, which was no surprise to Pepper given that he’s always wanted kids, but Tony? Less so.

“At least a couple of months,” Rhodey says and Pepper raises an eyebrow.

“That long? I figured a month tops,” she says.

Rhodey shakes his head, “nah, she’ll do her best to try and bond with Miles but it won’t happen. She’ll probably wonder what the hell is wrong with her, you know all those ‘mothers love their children before they’re even born’ stereotypes. Like pretty much every other human in her life she’ll need time to bond with him. In the meantime I get to watch how annoyed she gets with throw up,” he says and Pepper starts laughing. Yeah, that was going to be fun to watch.

*

Tony stares at Miles, her son, that little bastard that kicked the crap out her bladder for several months, and does her best to feel something but all she gets is annoyed because the poor kid smelled like sour milk. It didn’t matter how much she bathed him he always smelled like _something_ funky and it wasn’t exactly fun. She thought her nose was pretty much shot after all that time breathing in lab fumes but no, it turned out she smelled baby stink just fine. She couldn’t believe there were people who would adamantly claim that babies smelled _good_. They did not.

Miles squeaks and wiggles around and she’s _sure_ that this should make her feel something besides jealousy that _he_ got to sleep. After months of a normal sleep schedule she was wondering why she denied it to herself for so long and Miles was a night owl. If she believed that was genetic that would have absolutely come from her. Rhodey was an early bird and liked the daytime like some kind of freak. Miles, however, preferred the night. This meant she usually ended up staying up with him because for some dumbass reason she decided to breast feed and the kid had to eat. If she didn’t decide on that she probably would have pawned the kid off on Rhodey.

It wasn’t something she was comfortable with given that’s pretty much exactly what her dad did but what else was she supposed to do with a kid she felt no attachment to? She knew she was _supposed_ to love him but she didn’t feel much of anything with him, he could have been some rando she found on the street and took home one day. That probably made her horrible but she would freely admit that. Except now it was too late to back out, she had this little sucker for at least another eighteen years until she could kick him out to fend for himself. She could be like her dad and send him off to boarding school at seven to fend for himself, bringing him home only for summers which he would spend mostly with nannies but that was a jackass thing to do and she’d never do that. She might not feel all that attached to the kid but she didn’t want to ruin the poor kid’s life.

So while she tries to feel something for what essentially passes as human larvae she also tries to plan what to do if she never grows to love the poor kid. She couldn’t let _him_ know that, that was for sure. She knew what having a parent who didn’t love you felt like and she refused to do that to this poor kid, it wasn’t like he chose her as a parent so he didn’t deserve to suffer because she couldn’t bring herself to be a normal parent. Once she heard that mothers loved their kids before they were even born and that fathers were the ones who learned to love them but she called bullshit on that. Rhodey loved Miles before he was even conceived- he’s always wanted kids and resigned himself to a life without them when they got married. She, however, appeared to be the father here. Which was what she worried about given Howard and all the damage he did to her with his distance and being cold and all that.

She vows that even if she never grew as weirdly enamored with this child as Rhodey and literally everyone else was Miles would never know it. Kids deserved to be loved and she’s pretended to love lots of people, she figured she could pull this off too. Miles lets out another squawk and she sighs, wondering why the hell she ever thought she was cut out for this. It wasn’t like she didn’t think about it, she did for like a _year_ before she said anything to Rhodey about it so why couldn’t she just be like a normal mom and love her damn kid? Wasn’t that what happened when you carried the kid around in you for nine- technically ten- months? Then she remembers that she thought her pregnancy was basically a horror movie come to life and figures that no, apparently that _wasn’t_ what happened.

*

Pretty much everyone has commented on Tony’s discomfort with poor Miles by now but Rhodey knew she just needed time. It didn’t help that she threw herself headfirst into one of her biggest fears and, like pretty much every time she did this, she was so worried about her fears happening that she was unintentionally fueling them. So she was awkward with her kid, if it was Rhodey he doubted so many people would comment on it. The other day someone made a joke about him _babysitting_ his own child, which was something Rhodey liked to call _parenting_. People, he knew, wouldn’t make jokes about Tony babysitting their kid. Instead they claimed that her being a little awkward with children made her somehow the world’s worst mother.

Rhodey happened to know she had zero experience with babies, just toddlers, so she was awkward because she had no experience. She might be a rock star at math and engineering but there were some things that just didn’t come naturally. The only reason people thought they should was because she was a woman. People practically fawned over him when he knew what to do. He had like seven cousins he used to babysit as a teen; of course he knew what to do given his years of experience. He had to admit Tony debating on making some kind of baby changing machine to avoid the smell of baby crap was hilarious though, but she wasn’t willing to test it on her son.

She’d learn though, she just had more of a learning curve due to her fears of being a crappy parent and her lack of experience. She already figured out which cry meant what even if it took her three times as long as Rhodey to learn it. He had faith she’d pick it up though, she just wasn’t so good with people and babies were less able to communicate than adults. Rhodey knew it would take her time and everyone else putting pressure on her only prolonged that process. If she were under less pressure she would have handled this like she did everything else- through scientific exploration. He had half expected her to run Mile’s many baby noises through JARVIS to categorize them all and figure out the correlation between the cried and what Miles wanted. Instead she went the old fashioned route and figured it out on her own, which was odd for her but probably something she did because she was so frazzled.

When he comes home some five months after Mile’s birth he’s somewhat surprised to find Tony with Miles sleeping on her chest gazing at him fondly. He knew it would happen he was just surprised to find that it happened _now_ in particular. “What changed?” he asks and Tony knows what he means right away.

She shrugs, “that mobile thing he likes broke, you know that loud annoying thing that makes a lot of noise and flashes a lot? Anyways so I fixed it because he was cranky about it not working but when I turned it back on he reached for me instead.”

That was adorable Rhodey had to admit but Tony was pretty immune to cuteness when it came to babies. Actually she usually found things that most found cute gross so for a moment he doesn’t understand why _this_ was different. Then it occurs to him that Tony has always preferred technology to people and she must have expected the same of Miles in that moment but instead he reached for her. To someone else it was somewhat innocuous but to her it was somewhat monumental, especially considering he knew she didn’t think she was a good parent.

“I knew it would happen eventually,” he tells her, smiling. She certainly wasn’t a normal parent by any means but he figured that’d be part of the charm. He couldn’t wait for the PTA meetings and all that because that was _bound_ to end up with some pretty funny things happening.

“How though? I mean I’ve barely even liked the poor kid for _months_ , how could you know I’d change my mind?” she asks.

“Because you spent five months terrified that you wouldn’t love the kid, if you spent that much time in fear that you wouldn’t care about Miles you already did. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t care about whether or not you’d have to fake love him until adulthood, you’d just… well act like your father,” he says.

Tony shakes her head, “Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t believe you always know what’s going on in my head even if I don’t. That is so weird,” she says.

“Years of experience. Hey, have you considered running Miles’ movements and cries and stuff through JARVIS to figure out which movements correlate to what he wants?” he asks and she looks dumbstruck for a moment.

“Why the hell didn’t I think of that, that’s genius! Having a child has made me stupid,” she mumbles.

“No, it made you frazzled. Watching you flounder trying to figure out what each cry meant was kind of funny though,” he tells her.

“You knew what they meant the whole time? Rhodey I could have scarred the kid for life if I never figured it out, why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, distressed.

“Because I thought you’d use JARVIS to help,” he says. “It’s not my fault I thought of it before you.”

“If it makes you feel better I have already categorized all cried and movements,” JARVIS says and Tony swears.

“I can’t believe you. You’re too sentient if you take joy in tormenting me so I’m recoding you immediately. Also send me all that stuff on Miles,” she tells JARVIS.

“You know you’re going to have to stop swearing around Miles, right?” Rhodey reminds her.

“Why? It’s stupid humans made up words we aren’t supposed to use and honestly do you really believe that saying the word ‘fuck’ around a kid that doesn’t even understand object permanence is going to turn him into an international drug smuggling murderer who takes over and then ruins the world? Because that’s what people act like when you swear around kids and I reject that theory. I’ll try not to swear though,” she says and Rhodey starts laughing harder than maybe he should.

*

“Here, put this on,” Tony tells Miles, handing him a mask to cover his face. It was intended to block most of the fumes from the lab from getting to him. He kept bugging and bugging to go in there and see what she spent so much time working on so she finally gave up on trying to keep him out and figured if she satisfied his curiosity he’d stop harassing her. He got that from her, his curiosity and inability to let things go until he _knew_ what was going on. His teachers didn’t like it much and claimed he was disruptive but the kid was _four_ , at his age that’s all they knew how to do and besides, if they did their damn jobs right he wouldn’t have to ask five hundred questions until he stopped talking. He’d know how the thing worked right away and he’d go off to do whatever else was entertaining to him. Usually getting play-doh stuck in things or trying to melt down his GI Joes for some goddamn reason. Kids.

“If I have to wear a mask how come you don’t? If it isn’t safe for me than it can’t be safe for you and don’t say that adults are different because JARVIS told me they weren’t,” Miles says and Tony curses that damn AI for the millionth time in the last four years. The damn thing sold her out on a semi-frequent basis no matter how much recoding she did. Sure she wanted the AI to think but she could avoid it thinking of the fastest ways to ensure her safety, which was, apparently, telling her kid about it.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him, “put that on and lets go.”

“Why should I not worry about it? You should wear a mask too if I have to,” Miles reasons.

Inspiration strikes and she smiles, “it’s too hot to wear that when I weld,” she tells him. It wasn’t a lie even, though there were plenty of other things she should wear a mask to do and she never bothered. Too much valuable time wasted but Miles wouldn’t let her off the hook with that.

“But you aren’t welding anything in there, you told me you weren’t because it isn’t safe with me around,” he says.

Fucking kid, he was too damn smart and too good at finding inconsistencies. That was something else he got from her and she was cursing herself for it now. Why couldn’t she have a naturally stupid child that just listened? Probably because she wouldn’t love a child like that and also Miles was like the genetic intelligence jackpot with her and Rhodey’s combined intelligence. “Stop your questioning, get that mask on, or go back upstairs and play with your weird cat thing,” she tells him, hands on her hips.

Miles looks like he’s thinking hard to try and find away around this but she was pretty sure she got him with the curiosity. There was no way he was walking back up those stairs because he wanted to know what was in the lab, which means he’ll just suck it up and deal with the mask thing to do it. She was _sure_ of it. But no, sadly Miles finds a new line of questioning. “You told me I should question everything but now you’re telling me not to question you so which is it?” he asks.

This child needed to dumb himself down. Tony sucked at arguing, Rhodey was the one who found ways around this. Probably because he was just like her and she didn’t know how to handle little brown her any more than she knew how to handle adult woman her. Mostly she just winged it and hoped for the best. “Question everything except me,” she says, “I have the authority.”

“Does that mean I can question dad?” he asks.

God damnit. “No, you have to listen to him too,” she says.

“Why do you two get the authority?” Miles asks, squinting.

“Miles, I am one of the eight smartest people on this planet, you will put that mask on,” she tells him.

“Is dad one of the eight smartest people in the world?” he asks.

“No, but that doesn’t matter you’re still going to listen to him,” she says.

“Well if I’m supposed to listen to you because you’re one of the eight smartest people in the world and dad isn’t even one of those eight then I guess I don’t have to listen to him and I get to listen to the other seven people,” Miles says.

Jesus Christ this kid was going to be the death of her. “Put. On. The. Mask,” she tells him.

“But why don’t you have to?” he asks, bringing this back around full circle.

“Because I have a blatant disregard for proper lab safety that I’m not allowing you to follow because that’s bad parenting,” Tony says finally.

Miles shrugs, “okay,” he says and puts on his mask.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she mumbles as Miles runs off in the mostly cleaned up lab. Of _course_ he’d let it go now.

She teaches him about all the cool things she builds and Miles is rightfully amazed by everything. She figured when he got a little older she’d teach him how to do simple tech things and then maybe he’d like engineering as much as she did. She knew it was shitty to hope her kid would be like her and take over the company and all that but she couldn’t help it, it was a family thing after all she sure as fuck wasn’t having another kid so this one had to pan out. If it didn’t, well, she’d figure it out then but she’d love Miles regardless. Unless he went to art school, then she’d have to disown him.

*

Pepper groans, “you vowed you’d never be one of _those_ parents,” she tells Tony.

“I’m not,” she says, “but he really is advanced. I mean normal five year olds can’t do calculus,” she points out and shows her a piece of paper with Tony’s math on it that had, oddly enough, been completed my Miles. Tony might have messy writing but it wasn’t nearly _that_ messy even when drunk.

“Huh. Guess that genius got passed on to your kid,” she says, not entirely surprised by this. Miles always seemed too smart for a normal five year old.

Tony nods proudly, “good genetics,” she says and Pepper rolls her eyes but laughs.

*

Rhodey couldn’t help but laugh at how hilariously offended Miles looked at the notion that normal people didn’t have a JARVIS hanging around. It wasn’t something he and Tony thought to explain because, well, Miles never really went anywhere but their other properties and JARVIS was there too. But he had wanted to sleep over at a friend’s place and after some discussion they figured it was okay. Miles was hardly a normal kid given how famous both his parents were and it was potentially dangerous to both Miles and the people he was staying with to have him out of their regular security detail but Happy had volunteered to follow them around at a distance of course.

In the midst of all of this it hadn’t occurred to them to explain that normal people didn’t have all the things that they did and it wasn’t like anyone else knew what the hell a ‘JARVIS’ was. It was Miles’ friend that finally figured out why he seemed to keep asking JARVIS questions. The poor kid was used to the AI being there, he had no idea that no one else had JARVIS in their house. Most people would find JARVIS to be a very creepy and invasive presence in their life anyways given the constant security and the way JARVIS would butt into conversations like a human would. It was one of Tony’s favorite past times to bring people who weren’t used to the AI over just to freak them out.

“Well I think everyone should have JARVIS, he’s useful,” Miles says with a note of finality.

Tony sighs, “Miles, most people would think JARVIS is creepy.”

Miles looked as offended as Tony usually did at the suggestion that JARVIS was creepy, “he’s not creepy! Mr. Sanders is creepy, he looks like the black plague,” Miles says, looking disturbed.

“Kid, you don’t even know what that is. And I agree that JARVIS isn’t creepy but most people don’t like being watched all the time by an AI that will start conversations with you out of the blue,” she explains gently.

“But people do that too, JARVIS is basically the same,” Miles reasons.

“That’s usually what freaks them out,” Tony says, trying to hide a smile unsuccessfully. _She_ thought JARVIS’ humanlike qualities were awesome and a sign of how advanced technology was now but even Rhodey had to admit that sometimes it was a little weird to have him around. Like when they were trying to conceive and in the middle of sex the AI gave them conception advice he found online. That was just… well Miles was not conceived on that night thanks to JARVIS.

“Why though? There are like tons of movies that have AI in them, I don’t see why JARVIS would be creepy to people.” Miles, the poor kid, looks right confused but he didn’t know a life without JARVIS, it was normal for him to talk to the AI whenever he wanted. He apparently did this so much that he got confused at other people’s houses when JARVIS didn’t respond, which made Rhodey wonder how much he used the AI when he never saw Miles talk to JARVIS.

“Because they’re Luddite freaks,” Tony says and Rhodey sighs, taking over the conversation from here.

“Miles, people don’t use technology like we do because most people don’t live with someone as invested in technology as Tony is. Normal people wouldn’t even _need_ an AI like JARVIS because they don’t have labs and companies to run and even if they did they don’t personify technology like Tony does. Also most people would think the notion of an AI watching their every move is kind of Orwellian,” he explains.

Miles frowns, “what is ‘personify’ and what is ‘Orwellian’?” he asks.

“Personify means giving human characteristics to inanimate objects and Orwellian is a reference to a book called ‘1984’ in which the government is an overbearing presence that is militarized, denies the truth, alters history to benefit modern propaganda, and spends a lot of time and effort into surveillance on it’s citizens. Also a lot of lying politicians. Anyways, in reference to JARVIS people wouldn’t like all the surveillance he does over our actions not that he does much with the information,” Tony explains.

Actually JARVIS did a lot with the information but Tony designed the AI to learn and mimic human actions and tones so technically beyond that he didn’t do much with the information. He did sometimes take snippets of conversation to build reminders and other things like that into Tony’s calendars or as a way to categorize ideas Tony mentioned but forgot about later but the AI was mostly noninvasive.

Miles looks confused still though, “most of that sounds more like America than JARVIS. I maintain that JARVIS is useful and everyone should have him.”

Tony opens her mouth to correct the statement and sighs, mumbling about buying Miles 1984 to clear up misconceptions and walking off, leaving Rhodey to deal with this JARVIS mess. Miles refused to accept that the AI would act as an overlord of the human race and accused to general public of being paranoid of things they didn’t understand, which was absolutely a page taken from Tony’s book. Rhodey lets it go because there was no winning the argument; he’s only had the same argument with Tony for the last twenty years they’ve known each other.

*

To Tony’s absolute delight Miles takes to engineering as easily as she had and some day she hoped he’d be even better than her. He also flew through school as fast as she had though he didn’t like the idea of skipping grades because that meant leaving his friends. But staying in his own grade meant he was bored out of his mind and he had a problem with being disruptive, which Tony liked to point out was usually enriching to his classmates. It wasn’t Miles’ fault that he was smarter than all his teachers combined, that’s just how he was. If they didn’t like it… well she didn’t care that they didn’t like it. They could deal.

So eventually he chooses to skip the grades because he could go through a year’s worth of material in like a week just like Tony could when she was his age. The result was that he was in MIT at fifteen. He would have been there at least a year or two earlier if he hadn’t been so stubborn but Tony insisted that it be his choice to skip the grades even if Rhodey disagreed. She knew what it was like to be forced into that kind of decision though and she wasn’t doing that to her kid. Miles was a stubborn little bastard about it though; she thought he’d get bored way faster than he did. He might have gotten a lot from her but he somehow picked up on Rhodey’s patience even if he only used it selectively.

The last thing she expects is for him to come home one day and inform her that he was switching his degree to a fucking _art_ degree. Tony shakes her head, “uh, _no_ , you are not doing that,” she tells him.

“Uh, I already did,” he tells her in the same tone she used with him. Goddamn that was annoying, no wonder Congress hated her after telling them to fuck off in no uncertain terms. Got her fined but it wasn’t as if she didn’t have the money to pay.

“You are not doing some art degree, what the hell would you even do with that? You’re doing engineering because you have a future in that,” she tells him. How the hell he got it in his head that he’d do something so stupid she had no idea but this was not going to happen.

“There’s lots of things you can do with art degrees, I was thinking animation. I have the tech background for it,” he says and Tony snorts.

“Yeah, and you really think you’ll get a job in a field that competitive?” she asks. _Animation_? Where the hell had that even come from? He’s never liked… well she guessed he did like drawing but it was usually sketches of some design he was working on, not… whatever it was animators did.

Miles rolls his eyes, “almost all the fields that you want me to work in are highly competitive and you don’t seem to have a problem with that,” he points out.

“Yeah, because your skills are way better than most people’s. There’s no way you wouldn’t have a job even without my company,” she says. He was already a rising star in SI and he was halfway through his degree, by the time he was finished school and took the time to hone his skills he’d probably surpass her as far as skills went. She wasn’t letting him throw that away over some sixteen-year-old whim.

“So what, you don’t think I have the skills to do animation? That’s kind of a weird judgment given that you probably have no idea what that job even entails let alone my skillset,” he says and now he’s offended. Great, she was just trying to make sure he didn’t do something stupid and he gets all offended like this wasn’t an incredibly stupid decision.

“I’m sure you’d learn but you already have the skills to do engineering, the business side of SI can come later, you’ve got lots of time for that. Why mess up a good thing?” she reasons. That was reasonable, right? This animation thing was a total wildcard and it made no sense, engineering was pretty much a done deal, it was just what made sense to do. He was good at it and had a secure future in it, case closed.

“Because I don’t want to do it, what part of that don’t you get?” Miles says, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“You’re sixteen, Miles. You can’t go around screwing up your life because you drew a picture one time and liked it, this is ridiculous. You’re doing the damn engineering degree,” she tells him in a stern tone. This was getting ridiculous; there was no need for these childish whims, especially because they weren’t normal for him. Usually he was more mature than she was.

“You don’t even know how much time I put into this! I didn’t make this decision out of the blue, I thought about it first,” Miles says, frustrated.

“Than how come I’m only just hearing about it now, hmm?” she asks. If he didn’t make a snap decision about this stupid art thing than she would have known about it a long time ago.

“Well gee mom, it’s almost as if you’ve made jokes about disowning me if I ever did an art degree my whole life, I didn’t really want to tell you about it until it was something I thought about for awhile. Why are you being so difficult?” he asks.

Tony rolls her eyes; oh of course _she_ was the difficult one, not the teen who decided to throw his whole life away to draw pictures. “First of all I would never actually disown you and you know that. Second of all your throwing away a secure future to do something incredibly stupid, it’s my job as a parent to tell you you’re making a bad decision, that’s not being difficult it’s being your mother.”

“I don’t want to do engineering, stop pushing it!” Miles yells.

“Then stop acting like an idiot!” she yells back. “You’re a damn genius, use your head for something other than a hat rack!” There was a line she never thought she’d use. It came from a nanny that she never really liked but it was useful now.

“I don’t even wear hats, they look stupid on me! And I _am_ using my head, you’re not listening to me!” Miles yells.

“I’m listening just fine and I’m not letting you throw your life away for some pipedream!” she yells back. Jesus, why was that so hard for him to understand?

“What happened to letting me make my own educational decisions? Isn’t that what you told dad when I refused to skip grades, that it was my decision? What happened to that?” he asks.

“That is completely different, you weren’t about to ruin your own life if you stayed in grade four, you were just bored out of your skull. There was no long term affects to you being stubborn and refusing to move forward, which I _knew_ you would do.” There was no way he could have handled being stuck in such a dull environment for so long almost every day for ten months of the year. The poor kid came home miserable every day; she knew he’d give in eventually. He still kept a lot of his friends anyways.

Miles rolls his eyes, “oh so it was fine because it didn’t deviate from the plan you made for me. I see how it is, it’s only fine for me to make my own decisions when it’s convenient for you and only if they don’t disrupt the plans you made without me I guess.”

“That is not what happened, Miles, stop blowing things out of proportion. If you want to make your own decisions fine, but don’t be stupid about it. You’re being ridiculous,” she snaps for what feels like the millionth time.

“No, I’m doing what I want to do instead of what you want me to do! Maybe you should let me make my own decisions instead of forcing me to into the role _you_ decided was the only acceptable one, _Howard_ ,” Miles snaps back.

Tony sees red for a solid thirty seconds and when her vision fades back to normal she can see that Miles has realized his mistake. There has never been a time where she had been tempted to hit her son, not after all that Howard put her through, but she was very, _very_ tempted now. She doesn’t though because she isn’t Howard, instead she turns on her heel and walks away.

*

Rhodey thought Miles was exaggerating when he told him that Tony hadn’t talked to him in three weeks but when he gets home from his latest military excursion he realizes he wasn’t lying. Tony usually greeted him when he got back but she was barely there before she was gone again and she didn’t resurface again until a few days later for about three seconds before she was gone again. She was like a ghost in her own house and it was beyond unsettling.

“What the hell happened?” he finally asks Miles, who looked like he was dreading the inevitable line of questioning.

“We kind of got in a fight,” he says, not looking at Rhodey.

“Yeah kid, I got that. But what exactly happened to result in… this?” he asks, gesturing around. Miles knew what he meant.

He sighs and slumps in his seat, “I switched into an art degree and when I told her she didn’t take it well and we argued about it and I accused her of trying to force me into a role I didn’t want and called her Howard,” Miles says in a rush. _Oh_. Well that explained a lot and Miles only looks like he feels worse when he sees Rhodey’s harsh wince. “I was just mad, I didn’t think she’d stop speaking to me. I… she told me she wouldn’t disown me,” he says in a small voice that betrays his young age and Rhodey sighs, shifting to hug his poor kid.

“Miles she’s not going to disown you, she isn’t even mad at you. She’s upset and probably a lot more mad at herself than you,” he says. Miles just _had_ to pick the one career Tony looked down on, of course he did. Damn Starks never did anything easy.

“You didn’t see her face,” Miles says, sniffling.

“I don’t need to, I’ve known your mother since we were kids. I know how she reacted.” Whatever anger she felt in that moment quickly faded to anxiety that maybe Miles was right and that she ruined his life somehow or that she really was Howard. She was avoiding him because she didn’t want to damage Miles further and probably because she was still rightfully upset with him. “What do you know about her relationship with Howard anyways?” Rhodey asks. He’s pretty sure he knows but he figured it would be useful to make sure before he went and talked some sense into Tony.

Miles shrugs, “that they didn’t get along because he tried to make her into someone _he_ wanted her to be instead of accepting who she was. Which was basically what she was doing to me,” he says in his own defense.

Yeah, from Miles’ point of view he wasn’t wrong. But that was because he was missing about ninety eight percent of the picture. Rhodey shakes his head, “that was the kid friendly version of why you wouldn’t have had a grandfather in your life even if he hadn’t died in a car accident. He didn’t just try and force her to be who he wanted her to be; he _literally_ tried to beat it into her. And your grandmother. The man was an abusive piece of shit and probably the reason she used to be an alcoholic. I’d drink to forget him too and I probably don’t even know the half of it.” Tony used to make all these blasé comments about her father’s abuse like it was normal and Rhodey guessed that maybe to her it was. But that stopped a long time ago and she wasn’t exactly fond of telling people about that part of her life.

Miles looks downright horrified and then he bursts into tears, “oh my god I had no idea he did that! She’s nothing like Howard!”

“No,” Rhodey agreed, “she isn’t and it was a stupid thing you said, but you had no idea what the implications were when you said it.” He gently rubs Miles’ back as he calms down and it takes a long time because he was more like Tony than Rhodey and he tended to take things harder than most.

*

Rhodey finds Tony where she always is when things go wrong, in the lab. She doesn’t look up when he walks in but he knows she knows he’s there. JARVIS would have warned her that he was coming. “Tony,” he says after a long moment of watching her try to put something together, he had no idea what it was she was working on these days. She moved so fast even he had a hard time keeping up.

She ignores him for another minute or so before she finally puts down her latest project. “What, Rhodey?” she asks, not looking at him. Just like Miles, Rhodey thinks, given that their conversation started almost the same way.

“You need to talk to Miles. The poor kid has been wallowing in his own stupidity for three weeks with your silent treatment. Besides, he had no idea what Howard was like,” Rhodey says softly. “No one ever filled him in and for good reason. He said a stupid thing that he couldn’t have guessed tapped into a lot of things from your past that he was clueless to.”

Tony sighs, “we wasn’t exactly, wrong, Rhodey. Howard tried to shove me into a role I didn’t want and I pretty much did the same thing to him. What’s the difference?”

As usual he guessed her emotions right. “The difference is that Howard verbally and physically abused you when you when you acted in ways that differed from the role he decided to put you in and you were trying to safeguard your kid’s future. You think Howard ever gave a damn about your future when he hurt you? Do you think that man ever cared about anything but himself _ever_? What he did was wrong and awful. You might have acted like an ass but you did it out of love and genuine fear for your kid’s future. You wanted what was best for Miles and went about it in the wrong way; Howard was a selfish piece of shit wanted a clone, not a kid. It doesn’t take a genius to see a difference and thankfully you’re a genius.”

Tony huffs out a small laugh and shakes her head, “not enough of a genius apparently. Turns out Miles has had a lifelong interest in art according to JARVIS’ footage and somehow I managed to miss that.”

“You didn’t miss it, he intentionally hid it from you. You can’t realistically blame yourself for that,” Rhodey points out.

“I could have made a more welcoming environment for it and I didn’t and now I’ve wreaked our relationship,” she says. Rhodey knows he shouldn’t laugh but he does and Tony is as offended as he knew she’d be, “this isn’t funny Rhodey, I ruined my relationship with my son!”

He shakes his head, “I can’t believe there was ever a time when people thought you were a heartless shrew who didn’t lover her own kid. Jesus Tony, it takes way more than an argument with petty comments to ruin a lifelong bond with your kid. Did you not hear the part of this conversation where I told you Miles has been wallowing in his own grief? Go talk to your kid, the one who still very much loves you and burst into tears when I explained why comparing you to Howard was such a mean thing to do.”

Tony looks up in surprise, “he cried?” Miles has never been much of a crier, even when he was a kid. Yet another thing he seemed to get from Tony.

“Yeah he cried, I told him he accidentally compared his mom to an abuser, of _course_ the poor kid cried. Imagine being him Tony, saying something to your mom that made her stop talking to you for three weeks and no knowing why she reacted that way when, from your perspective, she just didn’t like her dad much because he was a dick. And then you find out that no, he was a child abuser and you just compared you mother to the man who used to beat her. That poor kid had no idea what he did to you when he said that and when he found out, well, he was pretty devastated.” He wasn’t entirely sure Miles would forgive himself for making the comparison either because, like his mother, he’d think way too hard about it an hold himself responsible for all kinds of things that he couldn’t have known about. Rhodey hoped he wouldn’t do that for his sake but he knew both Miles and Tony well enough to know it was likely.

*

Her entire parenting goal was to not be like Howard so when she heard the comparison, well, she hadn’t exactly been happy about it. First she was rightfully angry at such a stupid comparison but then she started thinking, and overthinking according to Rhodey. Still, Miles wasn’t far off the mark and when she had pettily reviewed all records of Miles’ life for any signs on an interest in art it turns out she missed a lot. Even those damn GI Joes he used to try and melt down for some reason turned out to be for an art project he had been working on, one she never seen thanks to her stupid comments. Of all the thinks Miles could have chosen it had to be _art_. Well, she guessed she’d grow an appreciation for it now, she had no choice.

When she emerges from her lab Miles all but leaps off the couch looking like he hadn’t slept in days, which might very well be the case if he was anything like her. And he was, minus the apparent interest in _art_ of all things. “I am so sorry, I had _no idea_ Howard was like that you are nothing-” she holds up her hand and he stutters to a stop. Wow, she could have used that when he was an annoying seven year old and he wouldn’t stop talking.

“It’s not like you knew, I don’t exactly talk about the man much. I’m sorry I never noticed your interest in art. You could have left the damn GI Joes alone though, those things smelled like ass when melting.” Miles looks confused for a long few moments before it clicks.

“JARVIS. Man, now I get why people think it’s creepy to have an AI watch you all the time because your mom can watch videos of you trying make art projects in your room from like ten years ago. I didn’t really tell you though so you can’t blame yourself for that,” he says, shrugging.

“I could have been more open to it,” she says. “I should have noticed.” It wasn’t like Miles spent a small amount of time drawing or other random art-y things, how she didn’t notice was beyond her. No, she knew why, because she didn’t want to. She was too focused on Miles being good at engineering to notice he had other interests.

“Maybe you could have been but whatever, it’s over now. And I always told you I was designing something or whatever when you _did_ notice, which was a lot actually. You always looked so happy that I just couldn’t tell you what I was actually doing. I didn’t want to disappoint you,” he admits, looking down.

With that in mind she scans her memories and yeah, if he was doing some kind of art project whenever she asked what he was dong maybe she did notice his interest but thought it was something else because… well that’s what Miles told her. “I’m not disappointed in you Miles. But you are genuinely good at engineering, you spent a lot of time with me in the lab, did you not actually like any of that?” Because that would have sucked for him if he actually hated all of that.

Miles actually laughs, “no mom, it was all great but not because of the engineering. You have no idea what it’s like to watch you work, to see that passion you have for what you do. It was amazing to see that, to be a part of it, I just never had that passion that you do. It was why I decided to switch degrees when I did. Maybe if I never spent time with you in that lab I could convince myself that I liked engineering but I did and there is no way I could ever do what you do justice. I just don’t care about technology like you do, I don’t relate to it like you. I feel that way about art. People say we’re a lot alike so I figured if I felt the way I did about art that you do about engineering than maybe that’s what I was meant to do.”

Huh, well that was something. She smiles, “maybe so. You’re good though, probably better than me if you put in the effort.”

The admission makes Miles’ jaw drop in surprise. Even Rhodey looks surprised at that when he shouldn’t. Miles shakes his head though, “that… no way, no one could be better than you. You’re like… as good as it gets, I could never do better than you. Especially without the passion that you have.” Miles looks genuinely perplexed and Tony shakes her head.

“I’ve been in this business a long time kid, I know talent when I see it and given the time to flourish you would have easily been better than me even without that passion. Don’t ever underestimate your talent, Miles. Selling yourself short only tells people it’s okay to sell you short too.” Her mom told her that once, after she won a robot competition with Dummy. Her opponent had a pretty sweet bot too but Maria hadn’t thought so. So she told Tony never to underestimate herself because then others would too and the last thing she needed was that. She got called an arrogant bitch for it years later but nothing she said about her abilities was ever false. If the world couldn’t handle an honest woman they could fuck off. That wasn’t her problem. She figured Miles could use the lesson too, if he was going into a competitive business.

Miles sighs and shakes his head, “wow, I can’t believe you just said that. No wonder you didn’t want me to give up on the engineering thing. Seriously, you think I would have been better than you?” he asks incredulously. Tony nods because it was true. She didn’t sell herself short, and she didn’t sell anyone else short either. Knowing how talented her opponents were, or in Hammer’s case _weren’t_ , was what made her so good at running her company. That and Pepper’s hyper-organization.

“You remember when you asked that the difference between you and Howard was earlier?” Rhodey asks, speaking for the first time since she retreated from her lab. “This is it. Howard wanted you to _be_ him; you wanted Miles to be _better_. _That’s_ the difference.”

“That and you know, actually loving me,” Miles throws in.

Tony snorts, “actually I didn’t love you for the first five months of your life. Sorry.”

Miles looks offended, “you didn’t? Why?”

“Because you were wrinkly and gross,” Tony says. Like _all_ babies.

“Okay I can’t fault you there, I’ve seen the pictures,” Miles says. “What made you change your mind?”

Tony shrugs, “you might have been wrinkly and gross but you were wrinkly gross and _mine_ and I love my wrinkly gross thing. You grew into a lovely young man,” she says, smiling.

Rhodey snorts, “she didn’t not love you for the first five months, she just didn’t know how to handle having a child,” he says.

“No I didn’t love you, I was prepared to fake it for eighteen years until you moved out,” Tony tells him.

Miles frowns, “well if you didn’t love me you wouldn’t have bothered to fake it,” he says, sounding remarkably like Rhodey all those years ago.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
